


rain down on me

by dottie_wan_kenobi



Series: January Prompt Event [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brothers, Canonical Character Death, Drowning, Gen, Hallucinations, I Made Myself Cry, POV Regulus Black, there is VERY MILD comfort. this is mostly hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28560948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi/pseuds/dottie_wan_kenobi
Summary: He freezes over the water, his hands cupped in preparation to take a drink, scant centimeters over the crashing waves.Inferi, he thinks, with sudden and brutal finality.
Relationships: Regulus Black & Sirius Black
Series: January Prompt Event [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2087082
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26
Collections: Bat Family 18+ Discord Server January Prompt Event





	rain down on me

**Author's Note:**

> I have thankfully never drowned/almost drowned myself, so I did do some research in order to write this. However, I'm sure this is not exactly a 100% accurate representation. Also tbh this is not 100% accurate to canon either. I tried but it's been a minute since I watched the movies.
> 
> Title comes from Thistle & Weeds by Mumford & Sons, which I listened to nonstop while writing this fic. I wrote it in about an hour and as such it is not beta'd.
> 
> Written for day 4: "Don't leave me." (and also sort of for the other prompts, Sick Fic | Running Out Of Air)
> 
> Forgot to say but, I firmly disagree with JKR’s disgusting transphobic views. If you agree with her, you’re not welcome here.

The water is freezing. It’s the first thing he makes note of, and some stupid, childish part of his mind—the part that cares about things that are unimportant, the part that saw his brother across a battle field and thought about the games they used to play, wooden swords banging together over the sounds of laughs, not wails of the dead—thinks, _Better for drinking, then._

He barely has a moment to react before a face appears below the surface, as pale white as bone and thinly skinned. Eyes sunken deeply in the face are completely devoid of anything, no emotion or spark of life, but Regulus feels stricken anyway. He freezes over the water, his hands cupped in preparation to take a drink, scant centimeters over the crashing waves.

 _Inferi_ , he thinks, with sudden and brutal finality.

He gasps wildly as hands—boney and freezing, with a grip like iron—grab onto his wrists and pull him down face-first, the shock of it lighting every nerve on edge. Desperately, he shuts his mouth around the inhale, jaw clenching tightly as the water engulfs him.

The water is dark. It’s the second thing he makes note of.

It’s so dark he can’t see anything at all for a moment—a blindness that strikes with precision, overwhelming but not at the same time, because what’s blindness to the reality that he’s being tugged further down? To the reality that there are more hands now, their fingers like bands around his ankles, his legs and arms, claws digging into his clothing and skin, down into the muscle. There’s a hand on the back of his head, pushing down, and one around his neck, squeezing.

Blood seeps around him. His eyes adjust enough to make out the slippery edges of it blending into the water. He can hardly feel the individual pain—it pales in comparison to the mental anguish, to the prickling heat in his lungs.

A face appears in front of him, then another and another. Skulls. Decaying flesh. Wickedly cruel blankness as hands reach out and grab more of him, his robes tears, his skin sketching. He kicks his legs, clamping his lips shut as hard as he can, even as his mind screams and screams.

Looking up as much as he can, he finds there’s no surface. There’s no sky. There’s no hope, certainly no salvation. Kreacher will not tell anyone, has no one to tell anyway. Mother was quite proud when he got his Dark Mark, but what few letters she’s sent in the interim were short and distant, too enraged with Sirius to pay him much mind. And Sirius… Kreacher will not ever go to him for help. But Regulus thinks—hopes, prays—that if he did, if Sirius knew, he would come.

The thought of his brother calms something inside of him. The burning is becoming worse, his throat clenching with the need to breathe in. Two warring factions in his mind scream at him: 

_Breathe! Stop holding your breath you great big idiot!_

_Don’t breathe. You’ll drown. Don’t breathe. Don’t breathe. You’ll drown._

_I already am drowning,_ he thinks, and somehow it doesn’t hurt this time. The hands aren’t letting go. He can’t see any way out of this, no guarantee that up is actually up even if he could get free. No one is going to come and save him.

Most importantly, his death will hurt Voldemort. Down a Horcrux, down a Death Eater, down an inside connection to Hogwarts. It will hurt, yes. It won’t cripple him, it won’t end the whole operation, but it’s—it’s good enough.

Water rushes past his face, through his hair, drags against his robes. He goes still, relaxing into the strong current the Inferi make as they drag him to his death.

He’s going to die. He’s going to die doing the right thing, taking a stab at one of Voldemort’s soft spots. He closes his eyes and imagines the future he won’t get to see, and hopes that Sirius will be happy there, with Voldemort defeated, life back to the way it should be. No fear of the streets or of your own brother. No gut-wrenching—lung-twisting, heart-flaying, eye-watering—betrayal or pain. Peace and happiness and joy.

He opens his eyes. He sees Sirius there in front of him. Wearing the robes he wore the day he left, his hair fanning out in the water, fading into the shadows beyond what Regulus can see. His face is pale and solemn, unblemished—not like that night. Not like when he left, rosy-cheeked from fury and a slap, a cut on his cheek (Mother’s ring, he knew) leaking blood down his jaw. He looks like he did when they were children, when Sirius would tell him to hide in his room and not come out, not for anything.

 _Sirius_ , he thinks, his head spinning. He’s missed his brother so terribly these past years. He’s never told anyone how desperately he’s wanted to fall into his brother’s arms, to let him protect him from the horrors and realities that weigh so heavily on his shoulders, on his neck.

He gasps as the pressure becomes unbearable, as the voice screaming in his head wins out. He garbles, “Don’t leave me,” and doesn’t close his eyes no matter how awfully he wants to. He doesn’t want to die alone, his only companions the skeletons of remains of the Inferi. He wants his brother with the childish hope he could never let go of.

Sirius reaches out, sinking with him, his hands cupping Regulus’s face. He doesn’t say a word as water coats Regulus’s vocal chords, as it rushes down his throat and into his lungs. He doesn’t blink or look away as Regulus lets it happen, as he sinks and sinks.

Finally, the hands stop pulling and pushing him down. Finally, the pain eases, slipping away from him like his own blood. Finally, Regulus’s eyes shut, his last moment spent watching the Inferi swim away, his brother wrapping himself around him like a last line of defense.

The water is peaceful, so far down. It’s far too late to make note of it.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [dottie-wan-kenobi](https://dottie-wan-kenobi.tumblr.com)
> 
> If you liked this, please consider leaving a comment, thank you! <3


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